Mobile robots can be used in inventory warehouses to assist humans to complete order fulfillment services. For example, the mobile robots transport inventory items from shelves to a checkout or shipping location. The mobile robots may operate under human control or navigate autonomously based on known map information or sensor data generated by sensors of the mobile robots. For example, a sensor is a camera that captures images of the surroundings of a mobile robot. The mobile robot uses the captured images to detect and navigate around obstacles in its environment.
However, the sensor may become dirty as dust and debris accumulate on the sensor over time. When the sensor is dirty, the sensor may generate inaccurate data, which results in unreliable navigation. It is tedious for a human to manually clean the sensor. Additionally, in a large-scale system such as an inventory warehouse with many mobile robots for transporting inventory items, it can be especially labor-intensive and impractical to manually clean the sensors of each mobile robot.